BEIRUT: Syrian regime air strikes killed at least 52 civilians, including seven children, in strongholds of the Islamic State (IS) militant group, a monitoring group said on Friday in a new toll.

The raids struck Al-Bab and Qbasin on Thursday in the northern province of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Obser­vatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground.

Previously the toll had stood at 37 dead.

Helicopters, aircraft pound IS-held areas with barrel bombs

“At least 52 civilians, including seven children, three teenagers and two women, were killed in the Syrian army air raids,” said the Observatory, adding that dozens were seriously wounded.

Helicopters and war planes dropped barrel bombs — steel drums full of shrapnel and explosives — on residential and industrial areas in the city of Al-Bab and neighbouring Qbasin, northeast of Aleppo, locals said.

“People were going about scraping a living and there were no armed groups in the market, only poor people. Why is Assad killing us? May God bring vengeance on him,” said Yousef al-Saadi, a resident of Qbasin and a volunteer with the local civil defence group who was contacted on Skype.

Syrian state media did not report the strikes on Al-Bab, a city of around 100,000 people that has been a target of heavy government strikes since late September.

The British-based monitoring group said there had been an increase in air raids by the Syrian military across rebel-held areas in the last three days.

It said at least 110 civilians had been killed in more than 470 air strikes on rebel-held areas in Syria in the last 72 hours, including towns in insurgent-held eastern suburbs of the capital Damascus, where the army has stepped up a two-year campaign to retake the area.

Eleven civilians, most of them women and children, were killed by loyalist snipers when they were trying to leave Zebdin, a besieged rebel-held neighbourhood in the rural outskirts of Damascus, the Observatory said.

“There have been unprecedented air raids across Syria in the last three days where the regime seeks to make gains on the ground to improve its negotiating stance in future political talks,” Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Observatory, said.

The regime air force has killed thousands of people since it was first deployed in the war in July 2012. Activists accuse the government of killing more civilians than militants in the raids.

The UN and international rights groups have repeatedly called on the government to refrain from using its air force against inhabited areas.

The country’s multi-sided civil war has killed an estimated 200,000 people and displaced half of its population.

A US-led military coalition is carrying out regular air strikes against the IS group, which has seized large areas in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

On Thursday, about 60 militants were killed in fighting with Kurdish forces for control of territory in northern Syria, according to the Observatory.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2014